


Eyes Black Like an Animal

by vyatka



Series: Eyes Black like an Animal [1]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Sarah Manning, Codependency, Gen, Incestuous Undertones, Unhealthy Relationships, bc those are a crucial part of helena as a character, doing bad things for the greater good, siri how unethical is it to use your sister as an attack dog, siri: pretty unethical, who has beta readers in this economy?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-18 12:27:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11874420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vyatka/pseuds/vyatka
Summary: “Can I kill him now?” she repeats, and Sarah says yes.Sarah turns away.Helena pulls back the slide, licks her lips, and executes the order.Bang.





	Eyes Black Like an Animal

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for incestuous overtones because it's difficult to write a season one-or-two era Helena without them, and although I guess this fic could take place whenever, I place it vaguely early season two. They are not, I don't think, any more severe than they are in the show.
> 
> ALSO: as i didn't place credit before i posted, this fic was inspired by [piggy09's sestre drabble "muzzle"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7378897/) which is a Good Read definitely go read that

Sarah’s hand is in Helena’s hair. 

Helena hums, leaning into it where she kneels by Sarah’s boots, Sarah’s long black coat – to match her long black hair, the color Helena’s used to be before she was an angel – where it has been shucked off, and stares at the man with dog-hunger. 

“Can I kill him now?” she husks, and her whole body burns with excitement. 

Sarah doesn’t look at her. Why would she? Helena is down at her feet, and Sarah. Sarah is all the way up there, standing tall and proud and beautiful and terrible, all the shadows sloping down her face. She looks like a devil. This is what the devil is: cold, proud Sarah, standing in the shadows with Helena at her side, her dripping knife, her tempered steel. 

“One moment,” Sarah says. “Soon.” Her thumb cups the back of Helena’s skull like it’s a baby’s, while the rest of her fingers stroke through her curls. “Soon, Helena.” 

Oh, trembling. Trembling and thrill. 

“She’ll kill you, when I tell her to. She might kill you even if I don’t.” (But Helena frowns; that’s not the truth. Helena won’t kill anyone that Sarah doesn’t tell her to. Guns don’t go off unless their trigger is pulled. There’s always someone behind a knife.) “Right, Helena?” 

Bleached hair falls into Helena’s face when she cranes her neck up, eyes full of stars. “Yes. Yes, Sarah. Yes.” 

The man spits a curse, shaking with fear. Helena leers. 

Sarah doesn’t do anything but laugh, and abruptly move away from Helena. Helena tilts for a moment, used to leaning up against Sarah’s leg, and almost overbalances without the hand in her hair, but then she’s pulling herself to her feet. Her gun is in her hand. Yes. Yes! 

“Can I kill him now?” she repeats, and Sarah says yes. 

Sarah turns away. 

Helena pulls back the slide, licks her lips, and executes the order. 

Bang. 

***

Sarah waits for Helena, back at their hotel room. They can’t leave anywhere together. It’s always Sarah first, and then Helena behind, slinking on foot, or on one of the motorcycles that they’re always switching out, just as they’re always switching out the cars, always a step ahead of everyone behind. Not that it matters. If all goes well, Sarah and Helena will soon enough round on them like wolves, and there will be no one else to follow. 

Or like. A dog and its mistress. 

They’re calling Helena Manning’s Mad Dog, in the Neolution circles, and it fits. That’s Helena: slavering, red teeth and red gums, blood in her hair and soaked through her knees, usually because she’s been kneeling in it with Sarah’s hand in her hair. 

Sobaka is the Ukrainian word for dog; it was spit at Helena quite a bit when they spent three weeks in Ukraine not so long ago, hunting down Neolutionists and Proletheans both. 

Both factions are unsafe, and they both have to go, but this isn’t a war for armies. It’s a war for, well, mad dogs. 

Helena is well-trained. She has enough sense to get rid of the body so that no one will find it before they leave town. 

She arrives just past two in the morning, slipping through the window like a smelly phantom. 

“Sarah,” Helena rasps. 

Sarah sits up. “Hey, meathead.” 

Helena drops into a crouch at the foot of her bed, fucking hobgoblin. Moonlight limns her silver. “Can I – is there any food left, Sarah – Sarah – you said, last time, that this time I could have something. Some food. Sarah.” 

“Right. When did you last eat?” 

Her throat pulses in a swallow. “Four days ago.” 

Well, shit, Sarah can’t just let her starve. Keep an attack dog hungry is a well-known rule, but keep an attack dog starved is a good way to end up dead. Hungry dogs are never loyal. 

She snorts at herself. This is too philosophical for two a.m. “There should be somethin’ in my backpack, yeah? A Snickers bar or something. I’ll get it.” 

Helena wolfs it down in seconds, like she’s afraid Sarah will take it away. 

***

Helena watches Sarah while she sleeps, leaning over the back of her, close enough to smell, running her fingers along the crest of her ear, the cut of her jaw, her lips, just as chapped as her own. She’s beautiful. Sarah is so beautiful that it hurts to look at her, but Helena can’t stop touching. 

Sarah’s nose: there’s a light dusting of freckles there. 

Sarah’s eyes: smudged dark with makeup, not sleepless shadows (although the sleepless shadows are underneath) or red from crying. 

Sarah’s chest and belly, moving slowly up and down while she breathes. No nightmares tonight. Good. Too often Sarah wakes up mired in nightmares, but Helena is always there to hold her to her chest and soothe her, lick her tears from her face. It is, after all, what a dog would do. 

She puts her hand over Sarah’s heart, tucks her nose into Sarah’s shoulder, and falls asleep thinking about veins. 

***

If Sarah were capable of feeling bad anymore, she would, when she orders Helena to snap a Prolethean’s neck in Minnesota, and afterward when Helena presses her face against Sarah’s belly, wondering if she did well. But she doesn’t. 

***

In Saskatchewan, she and Helena arrive at a party hosted by whoever the new Leekie is, some other fucker with a slippery smile and an aggravatingly bald head. They both have guns tucked against their thighs. Helena is too feral to come in through the front, so Sarah gets in with an invitation that wasn’t for her, and then lets her in through the back. 

There are eight deaths that night. 

Sarah gets shot. Evidently, someone anticipated their arrival. 

***

Helena kneels between Sarah’s legs and pulls the bullet out herself. Brave, brave Sarah, never a flinch, only a muttered curse through her clenched teeth. 

Sarah’s scars are light traceries, most of them. One of Helena’s fingers brushes over one on the inside of Sarah’s arm, and Sarah looks down at her, face teetering on the edge of a scowl; the calm before the scowl. 

“Sorry,” Helena says. 

“S’fine.” Sarah relaxes while Helena weaves the thread in and out of the sutures. “Shoulda known that someone would have expected us, at this point. We aren’t anonymous anymore, you know that, right?” 

Helena nods, focusing on her task. “I could have protected you.” 

“It’s not your job to protect me, meathead.” 

Meathead fills Helena’s insides with warmth, whether Sarah is hissing it through pursed lips – I don’t want to be your sister, meathead, you fucking – you fucking – or when she mumbles it as she’s waking up. She smiles to herself. “Yes it is. I protect.” 

“Is that your job?” Sarah leans back on her elbows, looking down at Helena with her eyebrows up. “Protecting?” 

“Of course. It is why we do this, no?” Tiny scissors snip away the thread, and there it is, those little stitch lines just above Sarah’s knee. “We are protecting the world, keeping it safe from evil. Killing all the demons.” 

Sarah’s face is curiously without expression. “God, they did a number on your head.” 

Helena assumes that Sarah means Tomas, who they both hate. “Yes. Much number.” She leans in and kisses the stitch where there will be a scar the same way she once kissed Sarah’s knee in Maggie’s apartment, as Sarah pointed a gun at her head. This feels the same way, only there is no gun. 

She turns her head, cheek dragging against Sarah’s thighs, and kisses her other knee, and Sarah stands up, pushing her away. She has stepped too far. Helena took too much. Sarah doesn’t hit her very often, but she wonders if she will now. 

But Sarah doesn’t hit her. What Sarah does is worse. She doesn’t look at Helena, just brushes past her and into the bathroom. She leaves her sitting there. 

I could help. Let me help. Let me help with more than the killings and the beatings, let me help, let me help you let me help let me help. Sarah’s head in Helena’s lap, Helena’s fingers in Sarah’s hair. I love you, Helena. Thank you for helping me, Helena. I want to be your sister, Helena. 

***

In Toronto, Helena shoots a Neo from a rooftop, and tails Sarah and a Prolethean for two miles before cutting her throat. That night, Sarah lets Helena lean against her and whisper into her neck, weeping. 

***

Just outside of Vale, Sarah denies Helena food for the third day in a row. Tomorrow they will be coming up on the hind end of Rachel’s people, and she needs her mad dog hungry. Hungry and red-eyed and spitting. 

***

Did I do good, Helena wants to know, her teeth shining in the dark. Was I good was I good was I good? Was I good? 

“Sure,” Sarah says. Her hand is in Helena’s hair.

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't written a fic in five years *rubs my aching old lady back* and i'm Bad out of practice but when OB ended i dug this out of my drafts and thought i'd shove it into the void because i WILL keep this tag alive even if i have to do it BY MYSELF


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